


Into the Rabbit Hole

by WinglessCrows



Series: Through the Eyes of a Cook [28]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Hidden Talents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-27 07:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15019952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinglessCrows/pseuds/WinglessCrows
Summary: Everyone has talents and Sanji has a hidden one





	Into the Rabbit Hole

We all know the feeling of getting way too deep into something. We are so absorbed in the thing we do, so we cut off anything that is unnecessary, anything that could be a distraction and anyone who does not have a place in the little world we have created. On the strawhats, everyone had that one thing that just pulled them into another world and could keep them there for hours, and for all of them, it was the most predictable things that drove each of them in.

Robin was obviously the book worm. It was actually quite ironic how the arguably most mysterious person amongst them had the most predictable and cliché hobby. As a true book worm, Robin could sit with a book for hours, while only moving when she found her body stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. She was usually also quite distant when she really got into it. Sometimes the boys (Luffy, Usopp and Chopper) would see how close they could get to her without her noticing, and sometimes they would try some stupid things like styling her hair or drawing on her face. The latter never succeeded, but sometimes she would end up with a funny hairstyle, though Sanji half suspected that she let them do it because it was amusing.

Franky and Usopp were the gadget freaks and more often than not the two of them would forget that other people actually lived on the Sunny. Sanji had many tales of times where they had built something on deck which had then exploded and nearly hurt others in the process. Sanji would certainly never forget the day they had dared to enter his kitchen and as a result of some very stupid experiment, which Sanji could never get behind, the kitchen had been set on fire. Needlessly to say both Usopp and Franky had more injuries than burns when the incident was over.

Nami was another obvious one. On calm days she would sit under the sun and draw her maps, undisturbed, calmly, peacefully. She would be surrounded by large pieces of the finest parchment and the most expensive ink, and with a steady and precise hand she would draw her maps. It would be the maps of islands they had visited together, maps of islands she had visited in the past or improved maps made with the information of many others. She would be silent and no one would disturb her unless there was a change in weather... but usually she would be the one to point that out.

Brook was the musician and you would think that it would be the music which would draw him in, but in reality it was the writing of it. Many of Brook's pieces had no lyrics, but those which had always told a story. Brook has a song for every adventure they had been on, even the ones Brook had only heard stories of. He had a song for each of them, which spoke of their dreams and ambitions. Sanji's favorite was the song of the future pirate king, though when asked he would always claim his favorite to be the one about tangerines. When Brook wrote a song his humming slowed down and his hand would move slowly as he carefully chose the words he would later sing to all of them. He would usually do this in the kitchen as Sanji always provided him with tea whenever his cup ran dry, so Sanji would sometimes have the pleasure of being the first to listen to a new song.

Chopper was a botanist (and a doctor) and though Chopper shared the garden with Robin (she loved flowers), Usopp (pop greens didn't come from nothing) and Sanji (he preferred working with fresh herbs), Chopper spend the most time there. Chopper was connected to nature in a way no one else was, and as he couldn't really jump into the ocean, the garden provided him with the comfort he found in the natural world. Chopper could also easily spend hours in their little garden, just tending their plants and whatever Usopp's...  _things_  could be called and as a result they had a very prosperous garden.

Zoro was also quite predictable. He practically owned the crow's nest as he had his weights and various training gear stored there, and spend half his day in the room. On some days he would only come down for meals, which meant that Chopper was keeping an extra eye on him, just in case. Occasionally Zoro would ask Sanji for a sparring match. Of course, asking meant insulting him and then attacking him, but Sanji didn't mind, he enjoyed sparring with Zoro, especially when the stupid swordsman got overconfident. The look on his defeated face always made Sanji's day. Their score was pretty even, leaning a bit in Zoro's favour, but Sanji blamed the fact that Zoro only spend time on training while Sanji had other duties, so it wasn't really fair. Usually it was the one who wanted to try something new who lost, just because they had no clue whether the idea they had in their head would work or not. One time Sanji had lost because he wanted to see if he could heat up Zoro's swords with his fire and thus make him drop them... it hadn't worked out too well. Another time Zoro had lost because he wanted to cut through Sanji's fire... he had went to Chopper with a burnt arm. They had also tried things like walking on water or stealing each others moves... in their own way. The first thing might sound mad, but Brook could do it and Sanji could walk on air, so water shouldn't be much different, right? The should have known that the Grand Line was known for spontaneous tsunamis. The other one was interesting... Zoro had always wanted a flaming sword, while Sanji would love to send flying blades with his legs to make up for him being a mostly short distant fighter and very weak to blade users. Armament haki was a good counter to some blades, but not those infused with haki. Sanji wasn't the only who was weak to blades, Luffy was in the same boat and Zoro loved pointing out how useless they both were to swordsmen. The comment would usually end in Zoro being injured.

Luffy was both predictable, while also being a mystery. He had the attention span of a goldfish and it was rare that something caught his attention for too long, but a good fight and a great challenge would do it. Watching Luffy fight was a true pleasure. He would go from a happy-go-lucky boy to the dependable captain he was and his eyes would show no sign of ignorance nor idiocy. Sure he did some weird things in fights, but everything held a purpose. Luffy was a pure fighting genius and Sanji sometimes wondered why these talents couldn't be transferred into non-violent situations. It was like something in Luffy's brain switched and he suddenly became a mastermind. It had been apparent to Sanji from Luffy's very first fight against Don Krieg. Luffy had distracted him to hide away his true purposes and lured him into traps. While Don Krieg had tried to fight in a territory which was highly disadvantageous to Luffy, he had still been at Luffy's mercy by the end. Against Crocodile he had found his weakness through a fight he had lost. Against Enel he had not only been the first to remember that lightning was ineffective against rubber, but he had also known that gold conducted electric static and had literally defeated Enel with the impressive powers of basic physics concepts. Against Rob Lucci he had pretended to be hot headed and having no plan, which made Lucci let his guard down and Franky slipped past him before he could stop him. Against Moria he had used his own past experience with the shadows to pinpoint his weakness. Against Hordy Jones he had taken advantage of his arrogance. Against Caesar he had taken advantage of his overconfidence and against Doflamingo he had destroyed all the plans the scheming Shichibukai had thought out and overthrown him. Sanji prided himself in being a smart person, but he probably couldn't get close to the way Luffy's brain worked. He didn't mind though, intelligence was different from person to person, and Sanji's quick thinking had saved them more than once.

Sanji was a passionate chef and having a day where he barely left the kitchen wasn't rare and today was one of those days. They had just left an island, which meant that Sanji had main land ingredients like beef and chicken to work with, unlike when they had been at sea for three weeks and they only had fish. So Sanji was making sure to make the best of these ingredients and his mind was focused solely on the food. This meant that he didn't really pay attention to the time and as dinner time enrolled the kitchen got crowded. Though Sanji was cooking and unknowingly serving the food, as he moved habitually, he hadn't actually registered that he wasn't in fact alone and that lead Sanji to slip up. When his mind wonders and his hands do their job, Sanji could very easily start humming or maybe even start singing, and that was exactly what happened, only Sanji wasn't completely aware of it. The others were though, and Sanji really should have come back to reality when the strawhats were being unusually quiet, but no, he still somehow thought that he was alone in the kitchen. Sanji was singing an old song he'd heard back at the Baratie. It was a song he knew by heart and could also play really well on the piano despite the song being relatively difficult. It was slow, a bit jazzy and fit Sanji's voice really well and had he tuned around and just looked, he would have found the entire crew just staring at him. Some were shocked since it was quite late to discover Sanji's singing talent and others were simply enjoying his voice. There were of course also those who already knew that he could sing, like Franky, who just smiled knowlingly.

What brought Sanji back to reality was when Brook started playing the song on his violin. Sanji immediately stopped everything he was doing and turned to face his crew. They were looking intensely at him and Luffy's big smile made Sanji blush out of pure embarrassment. He ended up hiding behind the counter, while he just buried his face in his hands and whispered  _idiot_ to himself.

"Sanji~" Luffy called, and Sanji did not like his tone, "Sing more!" Yes, Luffy liked his music.

"No..." Sanji weakly answered still hiding behind the counter.

"What? Are you refusing an order from you captain?" Zoro teased and Sanji could  _hear_  the smirk on his lips. He kept silent for a while, but eventually gave in because there was no escaping his captain's stubbornness.

"What do you want me to sing?" He asked, but still refused to leave his spot.

"Hmm~" Luffy pondered for a while, "You decide!"

So Sanji chose a song about dreams, which always reminded him of Luffy, and tried his best not to mess it up, because if asked, he'd much rather crawl into a hole in the ground than be here. When the song was finished, Sanji gathered the courage to take a peek at his crew mates and the first thing he saw was Zoro's stupid face, looking mighty as hell, which made Sanji forget all embarrassment. He threw the closest thing to him, a notebook, after Zoro and caught be surprise, it hit him straight in the face. Laughter erupted as Zoro got equally as annoyed as Sanji was, and people made sure to save their food from the turmoil of the fight between the two rivals. Sanji didn't have many regrets in life, but this might be one of them.


End file.
